Author: Primož Novak
Artist: TesseracT
Label: Century Media
Release: year_month
Length: 50:41
Rating: 4/5
With their debut album One (2011), Tesseract made it loud and clear that the new-school progressive, so-called djent bands that worship Meshuggah are alive and well on the old continent too. American bands mostly tied djent to metalcore and deathcore, but Tesseract took a very different approach. You could already hear that approach in Fellsilent, the band in which current Tesseract guitarist Acle Kahney used to play.
In recent years Tesseract’s main headache has been vocalists. This time around, Ashe O’Hara is already the fifth singer, and the first job was proving that the shoes of former frontman Daniel Tompkins (Skyharbor), the voice that more or less defined Tesseract, weren’t too big to fill.
Altered State carries on the sound of the debut One, except that Altered State is conceived as a concept album split into four parts: Of Matter, Of Mind, Of Reality, Of Energy. Altered State starts off slowly with Of Matter – Proxy, with gentle vocals and hypnotic guitar. Even before the distorted parts kick in, the listener gets the message that the band is once again building on a powerful atmosphere that blends almost seamlessly with classic djent. When the band isn’t serving up complex rhythms, punch and groove, calm passages show up, basically ambient suspensions. The recipe is nothing like Periphery, who are more focused on standout choruses and soloing. In Of Matter, which covers the tracks Proxy, Retrospect and Resist, Tesseract show they’re a pretty unconventional band that keeps surprising you with the structures alone. Across the whole album they prove that the songs weren’t forced out, and that they stand out for real craftsmanship.
Of Mind, made up of the tracks Nocturne and Exiled, paints a slightly different picture of the record. Nocturne, which was unveiled as the first track with the new vocalist, feels repetitive because of the overly looping guitars. The song gets rescued by the calm sections again and by the undeniably dynamic rhythm section. In Exile things get better, with more unpredictable passages.
At times the album feels a bit too drawn out and short on real ideas. The dreamy ambient parts do create an atmospheric effect, but when they go on too long, that effect fades a little too. Compared to the debut One, this album lacks aggression. The vocals are melodic all the way through, and there’s no screaming to be heard. But that’s exactly how Tesseract defined this album. O’Hara’s vocals won’t suit everybody. First, they’re too gentle, and the lines are slow and a little predictable. Second, there aren’t any really pronounced accents in the lines themselves. Still, the vocals aren’t the heart of the record anyway. Instrumentally, Tesseract are more than up to the task. The guitars don’t show anything groundbreaking, but it’s worth pointing out that the right hand of the Kahney and Monteith guitar duo is insanely precise. The rhythm section itself is more than good. Amos Williams’ bass is audible, has its own lines, and the use of slap technique especially stands out. The drums are a chapter of their own. Drummer Jay Postones is undoubtedly a powerhouse. His sense of rhythm is outstanding. This is clearly a seasoned player who probably learned from Tomas Haake (Meshuggah) and Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree).
On the plus side, Tesseract really did try to bring something new to the table. Of Reality has an electronic section, which is fairly common among djent bands, but Tesseract integrated the electronics superbly, so they could use them even more in the future. The instrumental Of Reality – Calabi-Yau also features saxophone, which is hardly an everyday thing in djent. The sax shows up again at the close of the record, in Of Energy – Embers, which puts the cherry on top of the album’s ending.
Tesseract didn’t disappoint the second time around either. All four parts of the album click together into a meaningful whole. The band clearly hasn’t run out of ideas yet. They’ll just need to polish a few segments next time, even though the album’s production is already at a very high level. In the end, it’s worth stressing that the band has made an album different from the debut. They stick to their style, but you can’t really say the patterns repeat too much.
Lineup
Ashe O’Hara – vocals
Acle Kahney – guitar
James Monteith – guitar
Amos Williams – bass
Jay Postones – drums
Production
Acle Kahney, Amos Williams
Tracklist
01. Of Matter – Proxy
02. Of Matter – Retrospect
03. Of Matter – Resist
04. Of Mind – Nocturne
05. Of Mind – Exile
06. Of Reality – Eclipse
07. Of Reality – Palingenisis
08. Of Reality – Calabi-Yau
09. Of Energy – Singularity
10. Of Energy – Embers
